SCOTT OSTLER -- Perfecting the Pre-Tantrum Warm-Up

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, October 15, 1995

I pulled a hamstring, which at first seemed very unfair in terms of karma, because I do not eat pork products.

However, I sustained the injury while attempting to kick a football, otherwise known as the old pigskin, so I can't complain.

Athletic injuries, like dueling scars, carry a certain glamour, but even though a piece of athletic equipment was involved, I can't pass this off as a sports injury, per se, for two reasons:

1. I wasn't actually playing a sport, such as football, at the time.

2. While I was, technically, "attempting" to kick a football, I "missed." What I kicked was air.

My son had done something he wasn't supposed to do with a football in our driveway, and my duty as a responsible parent was to create from this incident an educational opportunity. I did this by swearing and kicking angrily at the football, which was careening football-like across the driveway.

Had John Madden, the TV football analyst, been on hand, providing TV color commentary on my life, he would have said, "See, what happens is, when you get old, stuff inside you tightens up, and then when you do dumb stuff really fast, stuff snaps! Twang!

"Look, here's the replay! Strong kick, but he completely missed the ball! Took his eye off it! What the heck was he looking at? Now he's jumping around the driveway! Hop, hop, hop! Ya hate to see that."

The injury isn't serious, but it was sobering because I never pull muscles. I think this was nature's way of saying, "You're old and you're stupid."

Which is a dangerous combo, like drinking and piloting the Exxon Valdez. Being old and stupid are conditions that can be corrected, but only through the expensive and time-consuming process of reincarnation.

I am at the age where you have to start heeding the warnings of exercise physiologists, who recommend that before throwing a parental tantrum, you should limber up and stretch for 20 minutes.

At my age, any sudden physical activity without proper warm-up can be risky. Swinging a golf club. Swinging a tennis racket. Swinging your feet out of bed.

While not old old, I am approximately as old as Johnny Bench, the former baseball catcher. When an old-timers' league was formed a few years ago, Bench said, "I considered coming out of retirement, then I pulled a muscle vacuuming."

The hamstring, Webster's says, is "the large sinew in the rear of the hock," and I believe there is a bar in Carmel called The Rear of the Hock. When you pull a hamstring, your sinew is in hock for quite a while.

Ballplayers refer to this injury as a hammie. Rickey Henderson of the A's has hamstrings as sensitive as harp strings. He pulls hammies so often that his doctor gives Rickey a punch-card. After nine hammie pulls, treatment for No. 10 is on the house.

I'm luckier than Rickey, because in terms of making a living, my hocks don't come into play much. My hammie pull is minor, it should be fine in a year or so.

But I will have to watch myself. If the same situation were to arise again, I would resort to more mature and effective parenting methods.